2 Mob Fugitives Hiding In New York, Police Say

By SELWYN RAAB

Published: August 5, 1990

Two men described as top Mafia leaders, who disappeared in May shortly before their indictment on racketeering charges, are believed to be hiding together in the New York City area, law-enforcement authorities say.

The fugitives, Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, who prosecutors say is the boss of the Lucchese crime family, and Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, who prosecutors call the family's underboss, have eluded arrest for more than two months. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents said they doubted that either man had been slain.

Officials said the disappearances showed how convictions in recent years of key leaders have disorganized the city's five Mafia families, and how afraid current leaders are of the long sentences being handed out.

Mr. Amuso, Mr. Casso and 13 other men who the authorities said were leaders or associates in the Lucchese faction and the Genovese and Colombo crime families - two other Mafia groups in New York - were indicted by a Federal grand jury in Brooklyn on May 30. They were accused of conspiracy and extortion in rigging bids on $142 million in window contracts awarded by the city Housing Authority from 1978 to last year.

If convicted on all counts, Mr. Amuso, who is 56 years old, and Mr. Casso, 50, each face prison sentences of up to 100 years.

Dropping Out of Sight

''More than anything else, the recent sentences handed out in Federal courts to organized-crime leaders scared them,'' said Gregory O'Connell, the assistant United States Attorney in Brooklyn in charge of the prosecution.

Andrew J. Maloney, the United States Attorney in Brooklyn, said that Mr. Amuso, who lives in Howard Beach, Queens, and Mr. Casso, who lives in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn, dropped out of sight at least two days before the indictments were unsealed on May 30.

On June 21, Mr. Casso was also indicted in Manhattan on state charges of participating in a separate conspiracy to control the bidding for almost every major public and private painting contract in the city for 12 years. Mr. Amuso was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in that case.

Officials said that Mr. Amuso and Mr. Casso may have suspected that they were targets of the investigations because of newspaper reports about the inquiries and the subpoenaing of records and witnesses.

The head of the F.B.I.'s organized-crime branch in the city, Jules J. Bonavolonta, said agents will soon step up the search for the missing men through increased surveillance and questioning of their underworld associates.

An 'Open' Contract

''We are going into a full-court press,'' Mr. Bonavolonta said.

Both men, he said, are probably ''squirreled away'' in the New York area and still issuing orders.

Federal prosecutors, in a motion filed in June, said Mr. Amuso and Mr. Casso ''pose a danger to the community'' and should be detained without bail if they are arrested.

In a memorandum supporting the motion, the prosecutors said an informant provided information that Mr. Amuso had placed an ''open'' contract on the life of James D. Bishop, a painters' union official who was shot to death on May 17 near his home in Whitestone, Queens. The prosecutors said Mr. Amuso believed Mr. Bishop had cooperated with the Manhattan District Attorney's office in the paint-contract investigation. No one has been charged in the killing. Shot in His Car The memorandum asserted that Mr. Amuso killed Anthony (Buddy) Luongo, a capo in the Lucchese family. The prosecutors said Mr. Luongo disappeared in 1986 and is believed to have been slain because of ''a dispute over control of the Lucchese family.''

Mr. Casso, the memorandum said, was shot and wounded in September 1986 in his parked car in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn. In Mr. Casso's auto, police officers found confidential police lists of the license plate numbers of unmarked cars used for surveillance by department investigators.

The memorandum said that government undercover informants claimed that Mr. Casso had tortured and killed James Hydell, one of three men he believed had shot him.

Prosecutors said that Mr. Casso's ''vendetta'' against the men who tried to assassinate him led to the killing of an innocent man who happened to have had the same name and had live in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as another one of the gunmen, Nicholas Guido.

Another defendant in the Federal case, Vincent (Chin) Gigante, is confined at St. Vincent's Hospital in Harrison in Westchester County, where he is undergoing court-ordered psychiatric tests to determine if he is competent to stand trial. The F.B.I. has identified the 62-year-old Mr. Gigante as the boss of the Genovese family.